Bohemian Dark Lager Water Profile?

[Protos]

I brewed two attempts at Bohemian Dark Lager two years ago and the beers turned out decent. They didn't turn out as good as they might be however, as I was totally ignorant of the water chemistry back then and brewed them with my hard and alkaline tap water. So I got some rough edges from Saazer.
Now, after a year of learning water profiles and fiddling with them, I'm planning another try on the style. So I'm searching the internet for Czech Dark Lager water profiles. All I find is the repeated vague recommendation to use a very soft water profile (same as for a Pilsner), with mineral ppm's in single digits.

All that sounds nice for Light Pilsners, but with the planned grist of 45% Wiener, 45% Munich, 8% 80L Carabohemian and 2% Carafa III my mash pH will dive deep to 5.17, as Brunwater predicts. Which promises me a pretty acidic beer, as I can guess.

Does anybody have a knowledge, what do the Czechs do to their soft water to mash their Dark Lagers at a proper pH?
Adding Soda? Adding Lime?
Or maybe they use a different kind of water rather than what they use for Pilsners? Which kind of water exactly?
Please share your knowledge on the subject.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

It's most likely a different process not a different water chemistry.

Make a base beer with the diastatic malts using double decoction. The double decoction is meant to make the wort more fermentable, like adding amylase enzyme, thus using less base malt and ending with lower FG.

Cold steep any toasted, roasted and caramel malts. Add desired percentage of each of the steeped worts back to the base wort to achieve desired flavor.

You can obtain and follow the Budvar water recipe and the base beer double decoction recipe:

https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product/brew-with-us-budvar-czech-lager/
Be sure to watch the accompanying video series:

 

[dmtaylor]

I just brewed a Czech dark lager last week. I used RO water plus a little pickling lime as pH adjustment and to add calcium, only that, nothing else.

 

[Protos]

You can obtain and follow the Budvar water recipe and the base beer double decoction recipe:

The water they suggest is actually almost the same as my tap water boiled! Thank you for the link.

I used RO water plus a little pickling lime as pH adjustment and to add calcium

I was thinking to go the same way, I just wondered how authentic that would be as I doubt they in Bohemia add Lime to their water. Or maybe they do? Who knows...

 

[Miraculix]

I think cold steeping the dark grains would be a good thing here. Adding the dark liquid to the boil, this will ensure correct mash ph due to the absence of dark grain in the mash.

 

[Protos]

I'm trying to be very authentic in my process, up to employing the triple decoction, dreaded by many. Steeping grains looks like an overt cheating that ruins the coveted authenticity, so I doubt it to be the right thing to do...

I'm starting to guess that the use of the ultra-soft Pilsen water profile throughout ALL of Czech brews is another modern conception that doesn't necessarily apply to each and every historical Bohemian style. After all, not all of Czechia has the only single water profile, and, f. ex. the town of Budweis, known for its darker beers, lies quite far away from the town of Pilsen, it definitely should have a different water profile.
It seems I need to disregard the common wisdom of using the Pilsen water for everything Bohemian and just to look up for water profiles in the localities from where my recipes originate.

 

[Miraculix]

Then just calculate the best water possible to reach desired mash ph and keep the other minerals somewhere in the mid range?

 

[Protos]

Yes, that looks like a solution.
Or, else, I'll have to search for local water profiles.
I think it's not without a reason that some Bohemian towns brewed predominantly darker Lagers while some got renowned for their lighter styles. That might have been because of different water.
After all, the Bohemian Dark Lager tradition lies culturally within the circle of South German brewing, which traditionally preferred dark beers exactly because of their highly mineralized water.

 

[Witherby]

Yes, that looks like a solution.
Or, else, I'll have to search for local water profiles.
I think it's not without a reason that some Bohemian towns brewed predominantly darker Lagers while some got renowned for their lighter styles. That might have been because of different water.
After all, the Bohemian Dark Lager tradition lies culturally within the circle of South German brewing, which traditionally preferred dark beers exactly because of their highly mineralized water.

Evan Rail’s recipe for the Kout na Šumavě dark lager can be found here:
Bohemian Dunkel recipe...doesn't add up

He says "use extremely soft water," but that brewery wasn't that far from Plzeň.

I also try to be as traditional as possible, but I just brewed a Schwarzbier and only added the dark malts during vorlauf. I am very happy with the results. Sometimes you do what you gotta do.

 

[Protos]

Kout na Šumavě

Must be a great beer! It's one of the two I tried to brew, taking the recipe from the Hieronymus' hop book. Another was a Flek's clone.
Didn't fiddle with water back then, though. Maybe that's why I got both a bit harsh in the hop department. I had a very alkaline water and wasn't aware of that.
I've peeped into this recipe already, and also into the Flek's one. Both are said to be using very soft water.

Steeping grains.... no, it's for wussies for extract brewers. If there's a traditional beer, there should be some traditional way to brew it with no modern workarounds, I believe.

Today I recreated a monstrous decoction regimen from an old book. An innocuous interwar 1.048 Polish Pilsner, based on the full traditional Czech Pilsner schedule but even more complex. A really monstrous process, I don't even know what to call it, it employs more steps than a triple decoction. The most complicated mashing regimen I've done so far.
All in the name of Tradition & Authenticity.
No compromises, ever.

 

[BertusBeensteen]

Most info I find is "very soft water".
Apparently Budvar uses the same water for their light and dark lager, or at least the base. Maybe they add minerals, who knows.

When i use brewfather for a dark Czech lager recipe and using ROnwater, instill have to adjust the pH down a bit though. (Calculated)

 

[Protos]

Apparently Budvar uses the same water for their light and dark lager,

That's what it looks to me too from those tiny bits of information I managed to find on the subject.
Well, then there's no other way than to brew a Bohemian Dunkel with that dubious 5.2 pH and see if the resulting beer differs greatly from the commercial Czech brews.

 

[Witherby]

The water they suggest is actually almost the same as my tap water boiled! Thank you for the link.


I was thinking to go the same way, I just wondered how authentic that would be as I doubt they in Bohemia add Lime to their water. Or maybe they do? Who knows...

Eric Toft at Schönram uses slaked lime (pickling lime) and he aims to be as traditional as possible:
https://beerandbrewing.com/greatest-drinkability-the-bavarian-brewers-art/

 

[Protos]

I see no problem in using Lime. I just can't find a definite info whether the Bohemian brewers used it when brewing their Dunkels with their soft water. It seems logical to speculate that they should but I find no hints on that in any records I'm aware of. Which means, they might either use different ways to raise the pH or just didn't mess with it at all and somehow managed to brew a good beer even with those disturbingly low pH.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

I see no problem in using Lime. I just can't find a definite info whether the Bohemian brewers used it when brewing their Dunkels with their soft water. It seems logical to speculate that they should but I find no hints on that in any records I'm aware of. Which means, they might either use different ways to raise the pH or just didn't messed with it at all and somehow managed to brew a good beer even with those disturbingly low pH.

Lime was used to soften the water via the lime softening process (precipitate bicarbonates) before brewing. It was not used as a water addition to raise pH during mashing.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

That's what it looks to me too from those tiny bits of information I managed to find on the subject.
Well, then there's no other way than to brew a Bohemian Dunkel with that dubious 5.2 pH and see if the resulting beer differs greatly from the commercial Czech brews.

The grist for these style beers should not produce a low pH (< 5.2).

If it does the amount of roast and cara malts is too much.

77% Weyermann Pilsner Malt - DI pH 5.6 -5.8
10% Weyermann Munich II - DI pH 5.4
10% Weyermann Caramunich II - DI pH 5.0
3% Weyermann Carafa Type III - DI pH 4.5

Mash should be around 5.5 pH with a distilled water and not much lower for a very soft water.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

Steeping grains.... no, it's for wussies for extract brewers. If there's a traditional beer, there should be some traditional way to brew it with no modern workarounds, I believe.

Making an extract, whether by steeping, mashing or a dry/liquid product, and dosing a base wort is a common practice in modern brewing. The likes of Guinness and Anhueser-Busch make use of these methods to make a consistent product.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/do-any-major-breweries-use-extract.323458/
On a small scale, homebrewers have the ability to use water calculators to estimate mash pH with various acids and malt types but on a large commercial scale a higher quality product can be produced through mixing of the various extracts. This methodology is and was used by well known homebrewers to win Gold medals.

Decoction mashing all grains together with a soft water profile would certainly be historical and the way to go if that's what you're after.

Decoctions are used to raise the fermentability of the extract (wort) by forcing the creation of different types of sugar at the various stages.

You'll most likely have to practice the decoction over and over again to attain the desired fermentability.

 

[Protos]

Thanks, I know this all already. I use Lime sometimes to precipitate carbonate (though I prefer boiling) and I use decoctions to raise greatly the extraction rate.
I have no doubts that the grist with 77% of Pilsner won't produce any pH-related difficulties, but that's not the only possible grist for the style, and the one I'm trying to replicate (45% Wiener/ 45% Munich as the base) lowers pH in a soft water a bit too low.
Essentially my question was: Do the Czechs treat somehow their soft watet for their Dark Beers or do they let it be as it is and the very low mash pH is just a feature of the style?
Another part of my question was if they used the same soft water both for Dunkels and Pilsners, and it seems it's found its answer already: yes, they did.

 

[BertusBeensteen]

Even the grist in your opening post does not give me a calculated pH below 5.3 in brewfather. (Maybe brewfather is wrong)
At an OG of 1.060 it gives an estimate of 5.43 pH when using distilled water.

It also gives an estimate attenuation of 60% though. (FG 1.023 using wlp800).
Might be on the high side for the style, might be a tasty low abv beer though.

Let us know how it turns out!

 

[Protos]

I calculate in Brun Water which returns pH 5.2 at 1.058 for both Pilsen and Pseudo BoPils profiles and 5.19 for Distilled.
Attenuation of 60% would be great (most of historical Lagers I brew require lower attenuations) but is unobtainable to me. Dry Lager yeasts only available to me go no lower than 77%, and decoctions which make the wort highly fermentable don't help in this regard too.

I've never used Grainfater as I don't have any (a proud Stovetop Small-Batch BIAB brewer here), I read however that Grainfather has a not-so-soft Profile for Czech water:

We used the Czech water profile with the Grainfather software for our brew which gives the following targets:

62.5 ppm Ca2+
5 ppm Mg2+
20 ppm CaCO3
86.25 ppm So42-
75 ppm Cl-
<100 ppm Na+
5.4 pH

I wonder where did Grainfather get such a profile - is that an approximation of some real brewing liquor profile or just some random Czech city water report?

Also, the same TheMaltMillerCoUk who suggest this profile in their manual to their Budvar kit, in their article on the Budvar Brewery give completely different profile for the Budweis water:

If you want to exactly duplicate the water profile, Budvar have kindly shared it with us:

• Calcium – 12ppm
• Magnesium – 7ppm
• Sodium – 6ppm
• Chlorides – 5ppm
• Sulphates – 9ppm
• Alkalinity (as bicarbonate) – 23ppm

To achieve such low concentrations of minerals, you might consider using a mix of bottled water with your tap water, or starting from RO water.

 

[BertusBeensteen]

Note that grainfather is not the same as brewfather.

The pilsen profile in brewfather is indeed very soft:

 

[Protos]

I see now.
It's exactly the same profile as in Brun.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

Maltmiller seems to be using the Grainfather water plugin to build their local water into apparently what the Budvar gents are telling them is taken out of their (Budvar's) well.

MaltMiller: "We've used our own water and built it up into a Czech water profile."

MaltMiller: "... as close to the water as you guy's take out of the well."

Those are the statements I can understand in that part of the video.

Couldn't understand what the gent from Budvar said maybe someone can comment on that.

1:45 - 1:55 in this video:

 

[BertusBeensteen]

I asked "the gent from Budvar", and he suggests using the pilsen profile, or if you like some minerality and emphasize the hops you can use the munich profile.

I will be using the pilsen profile, and maybe adjust half of the batch in the keg, just to see which one i prefer.
But i will not be using Munich and Vienna, so i still have to adjust the pH down.

 

[Protos]

But i will not be using Munich and Vienna,

How a Bohemian Dunkel could be brewed without a Munich?
Well, Wienna is optional and coud be swapped for Pilsner, but Munchner is present in significant quantities (15 to 45%) in every historical Bohemian Dark recipe, it's a defining grain in the style's flavour profile...
Or are you talking about a light Bohemian Lager? Then no worries of pH whatsoever, even with Distilled water.

 

[BertusBeensteen]

Floor malted Bohemian pils dark by weyermann is my choice for 40% of the grist.
https://www.weyermann.de/en-gb/product/weyermann-floor-malted-bohemian-dark-malt-3/
Should be somewhat similar to munich I guess.

 

[Arminius757]

I'm trying to be very authentic in my process, up to employing the triple decoction, dreaded by many. Steeping grains looks like an overt cheating that ruins the coveted authenticity, so I doubt it to be the right thing to do...

I'm starting to guess that the use of the ultra-soft Pilsen water profile throughout ALL of Czech brews is another modern conception that doesn't necessarily apply to each and every historical Bohemian style. After all, not all of Czechia has the only single water profile, and, f. ex. the town of Budweis, known for its darker beers, lies quite far away from the town of Pilsen, it definitely should have a different water profile.
It seems I need to disregard the common wisdom of using the Pilsen water for everything Bohemian and just to look up for water profiles in the localities from where my recipes originate.

Just want to point out that steeping the dark grains separately is not "cheating". Several articles and recipes found on Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine from Czech brewers suggest steeping the dark grains separately or adding them during the lautering phase as a mash cap. This would be done post decoction.

 

[Protos]

Thanks for the info, need to check it up!
Now I need to find those Czech brewers' articles to explore where did they learn their steeping method from. If they adopted it on American brewing forums, it's still cheating

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

Tmavé Pivo: The Czech Republic’s Uncommon Dark Lager

People throw “legend” around too often nowadays, but the word fits perfectly on Ivan Chramosil, who worked as the brewmaster at U Fleků for 45 years. Now retired with the title of “brewer emeritus” at his old haunt, Chramosil serves as a beer judge in international competitions and works as a consultant for a number of Czech breweries. In his eyes, the drinkability of a great tmavé pivo depends on its limited sweetness.

“Some people make tmavé pivo really sweet, but it tastes best to me when it is just slightly sweet, with a pleasant, very light caramel flavor,” he says.

Czech brewers, he says, generally make tmavé pivo using pilsner as their base malt, which usually accounts for about 50 percent of the total. The remainder will usually be Munich malt—either light or dark—followed by a smaller share of caramel malt and just a touch of dark roasted malt. Some brewers, he notes, might also include a portion of an aromatic malt such as Weyermann CaraAroma.

“It all depends on your setup, your brewhouse, and the kind of taste you like,” Chramosil says. At Pivovar Hostomice, Kříž brews his tmavé pivo to 14°P (OG 1.056). He uses a classic four-malt combination, but in slightly atypical proportions.

“I personally like to use more than 50 percent of the dark malts,” he says. “Only about 40 percent is pilsner malt. I like to use standard pilsner and the very lightest Munich malt available. But for the caramel malt and the dark roast malt, I want the darkest versions available and in the smallest amounts possible.” That helps him avoid getting too much caramel flavor in the beer, he says.

Just in terms of the malt bill, variations on tmavé pivo are pretty much endless. The beloved, but now defunct, Pivovar Kout na Šumavě used the same four malts as Hostomice for its tmavé pivo, similarly brewing its version to 14°P. But Kout na Šumavě’s was made with 77 percent pilsner malt, 10 percent Munich, and 10 percent Caramunich, with 3 percent Carafa—an oversize portion of the latter, by Czech standards.

Chramosil says many brewers use Caramunich II, while Kříž prefers Caramunich III. As Chramosil says, a lot depends on the specific equipment where the beer is being brewed, and there’s plenty of room for experimentation and variation in the grain bill.

​

What doesn’t really vary is the process. Tmavé pivo is a Czech beer, and just like a classic Czech pale lager, it should be brewed with a traditional decoction mash.

However, there is a catch.

“You don’t put the darkest malt, the Carafa, in the mash, and the Carafa doesn’t go through decoction,” Chramosil says. “You only add it at the sparge. That’s an old brewer’s trick.”

Evan Rail - U Fleků Recipe

U Fleků is grand old beer. Another one of the great dark lagers here is from Kout na Šumavě, which I wrote about in "The Brewery in the Bohemian Forest." Part of that book talks about going out there in the middle of a blizzard to get the recipe for their 14º dark beer, which appeared in Stan's book "For the Love of Hops." I'll post it here:

OG: 14º Balling / Plato
IBU: 34
ABV: 5.8

77% Weyermann Pilsner Malt
10% Weyermann Munich II
10% Weyermann Caramunich II
3% Weyermann Carafa Type III

Use extremely soft water, 2 decoctions, and a 90-minute boil. Hop in 3 equal amounts at 90', 60' and 30', whirlpool, and lager for 3–4 months at 2º Celsius before serving.

 

[Protos]

Thank you, great info. I've read both already (the Rail's recipe, not on the forum but in For The Love Of Hops book, I brewed it once exactly from there). The Chramosil article is particularly useful, he's the primary authority for the style.

No steeping, just what I was saying. Adding Carafa at the Vorlauf isn't steeping. So, another confirmation of all darker malts besides the Black Malt being mashed and decocted. Which returns us to the starting question: how do the Czechs manage their extremely soft water to brew dark beers. No definitive answers found so far.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

No steeping, just what I was saying. Adding Carafa at the Vorlauf isn't steeping.

The roast grain is literally just sitting in hot wort while it's being run off which technically makes it a form of steeping.

Which returns us to the starting question: how do the Czechs manage their extremely soft water to brew dark beers. No definitive answers found so far.

They don't have to modify the water because the acidic roast grains are not being mashed. The remainder of the grain bill gives an acceptable pH.

 

[Protos]

The roast grain is literally just sitting in hot wort while it's being run off which technically makes it a form of steeping.

Strictly technically, lauter additions are a form of mashing rather than steeping as they don't go into a dedicated steeping vessel and are added to the mash tun along with the base malts, although for a very short time. Anyway, what we were talking about, was -

Several articles and recipes found on Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine from Czech brewers suggest steeping the dark grains separately...

- i. e. about a proper (not just technically) steeping process where the dark grainS (not just Black Malt) are steeped separately. I still haven't found those articles, but I'm sure Czech brewers might indeed recommend steeping - after all why wouldn't modern Czech brewers adopt some innovative methods? That doesn't make those methods traditional, however.

The remainder of the grain bill gives an acceptable pH.

That's true. Following the Chramosil advice, I removed Black Malt from my Brun calculation sheet and the predicted pH increased from 5.19 to 5.31, which is still pretty low but acceptable.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

lauter additions are a form of mashing rather than steeping as they don't go into a dedicated steeping vessel and are added to the mash tun along with the base malts

The mash is over at the time of lauter due to the raising of the temperature to denature the enzymes (mash out) hence making it a steep. At the homebrew level the lauter may not last long enough, even when fly sparging, to extract the desired level/characteristics of the roast malt thus the need to use a separate vessel.

Either way you're grasping at straws and have the answers you need.

 

[BertusBeensteen]

I would like to know how the recipe will turn out.

I've had multiple examples of tmavě ležák recently, although not from a sidepull unfortunately but from can and bottle.
All examples are somewhat similar, but also distinguishably different. Great style in my opinion.

 

[Protos]

you're grasping at straws

Am I? I thought it was you - bringing the subject of lauter additions which are "technically" steeping while the talk was about steeping all dark grains separately. Well, let it be me, whatever

I would like to know how the recipe will turn out.

The bubbler is bubbling!
I decided not to experiment with super soft water this time, so I used the harder Grainfather "Czech water" profile which looked more familiar and more predictable to me. Next time, when I collect more reliable info on Czech water for Bohemian Dunkels, I'll use different water. Now, just not enough information.

 

[Oleson M.D.]

Here is what a commercial brewery said about water for any Czech lager, use 90% RO water, and 10% filtered city tap water. This is if your local water supply is moderately hard.
That's pretty simple. And this is what we do.

 

[Protos]

That's great! This, and the steeping lauter addition of the Black Malt may really produce an acceptable mash pH. Will use such a water profile next time.

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

It's a good decision on your part to steep those dark grains during lauter.

Remember that Weyerman base malts, especially the floor malted, tend to have a higher DI pH thus negating the need for anything but soft water.

Be sure to use a water calculator that allows for custom DI pH entry and override. Mash Made Easy comes to mind or any that took AJ Delanges advice. Calculators based on SRM and bicarbonate conversions may not be as accurate (Bru n water, ez water. Etc)